In pvp its fine for controlling spam I guess... but lacks any killing power and you are lucky enough to land torps on one person with out a shield facing let alone 2.

In PvE you will draw argo on all the things you don't want to draw argo on... don't be the spreader that pulls tac cubes and gets one shot by gates that would have ignored you.

Also HY single target dmg IS MUCH higher. One you get an extra dmg hit...2 they all hit 20% higher. 3... if your a tac or a sci with sensor scan those higher base numbers translate into MASSIVE crits.

Yes Spread is usable where it was once junk... still HY is better in every situation I can think of. The first change to spread made it much better then HY... it has since been corrected and works as it should. Really outside of spam control I don't see the point.

Thanks, I suspected as much.
In a lot of builds I have seen people going for Spread over HY and if its PvE and I want to avoid agro I couldnt see why!

Further question, again which is better for PvE STF's
Cannon Scatter Volley or Cannon Rapid Fire?

Thanks again

If you use a combo of FAW and Spread on an Eng captain with a cruiser it can be pretty effective for tanking and taking on lots of opponents at once. Makes pulling aggro off those squishy escorts a lot easier, too.

As for cannons, unless you're planning on drawing aggro, rapid fire will beat out scatter on single-target every time. It's the same as HY vs Spread, just with cannon bursts instead of torps. And in STF's, it's not about taking on everything at once, it's about quickly and efficiently DPSing one thing down and then moving to the next target.

Boy do I love Spread! All kinds! Even Vegamite! But in STO I prefer torpedo spread! Did you know there's a new mission out that has a Jem BO as a reward? He can train you in Torpedo Spread 3!! Or he can join your crew! He's sorta mean but he sure can shoot torpedoes!

Torpedo spread 3 will commonly do ten K damage per hit on hull in PVP. Boomage! and if it happens to hit four other targets in PVP well what do I care? More boomage! I'm a BO3 type of guy in pvp so I really have no opinion on scatter volley 2 and 3. I use it, I do decent damage, its just not as bursty as BO3 with TS3 and APO.

Did you know that torpedoes are one of the most fun and very goodest aoe damage doers in PVE? Its true! A lot of times in missions your alone so it turns out you have aggro anyway !! why not do some damage to allllll of em?

Cannon scatter and torpedo spread will give you your best damage over the course of a complete STF. There's not to many ways around that. Even if the aoe attacks did only half the damage of the single target, and they don't they are over 70%, you would have to attack over twice as many times to out do the aoe damage. And since there are little things like oh, time constraints and total possible number of targets that will ever be available to shoot at in an stf, aoe will be king.

If you're being killed in an stf because you annoyed a nanite probe or a sphere, you may need to fine tune your build a bit.

In pvp its fine for controlling spam I guess... but lacks any killing power and you are lucky enough to land torps on one person with out a shield facing let alone 2.

In PvE you will draw argo on all the things you don't want to draw argo on... don't be the spreader that pulls tac cubes and gets one shot by gates that would have ignored you.

Also HY single target dmg IS MUCH higher. One you get an extra dmg hit...2 they all hit 20% higher. 3... if your a tac or a sci with sensor scan those higher base numbers translate into MASSIVE crits.

Yes Spread is usable where it was once junk... still HY is better in every situation I can think of. The first change to spread made it much better then HY... it has since been corrected and works as it should. Really outside of spam control I don't see the point.

All 3 Elite STFs do have a need for some level of spam control.

CSE: BoPs / Raptors / Neg'vars
ISE: Mass of Spheres
KASE: Probes

On top of these, all three will see these enemies clumped together and moving directly toward the player, an Escort with CSV can easily strip the shield facing off of multiple targets and follow it with TS.

On ISE in particular 2-3 AoE focused Escorts can make really quick work of the mass of spheres.

If you use a combo of FAW and Spread on an Eng captain with a cruiser it can be pretty effective for tanking and taking on lots of opponents at once. Makes pulling aggro off those squishy escorts a lot easier, too.

As for cannons, unless you're planning on drawing aggro, rapid fire will beat out scatter on single-target every time. It's the same as HY vs Spread, just with cannon bursts instead of torps. And in STF's, it's not about taking on everything at once, it's about quickly and efficiently DPSing one thing down and then moving to the next target.

So against a Borg Cube or the Gates would HY and CRF be the best and most efficient combo or would Spread and CSV be the most efficient combo